Darth Lefty 

I had one lap this week. More WFH due to a sick kid needing a parent in the house.

On my one lap I found this, inches from the bike trail. Someday long ago, maybe when the trail was made, a limb was cut off this tree at ground level. The interior rotted. The hole is a secret little cave, like a forest version of a tide pool

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1614:

Today wasn't the most challenging commute I've had this winter, but it was the most challenging I've had in probably the last month.

We received 2+" of fresh snow yesterday. It started with a couple hours of steady rain, which left a nice wet layer underneath the new snow. Then the temps dropped into the teens causing all that wet, slushy stuff to freeze solid into ruts and chunks of ice. Then the wind came up hard and blew drifts of snow over the top of everything.

When my alarm went off I could hear the wind howling. That never puts me in a good frame of mind for the commute. The temp was 14°F, and it's supposed to continuously drop throughout the day. Had to fight the 20+ mph wind on the way to the office, but at least I should get a good push home.

Because of the rough surfaces caused by the frozen stuff, I chose to ride the fat bike. That turned out to be the correct choice as there were a lot of spots I slowly rode through where the thinner mountain bike tires would have forced me to walk. Even with the fat bike, there were a couple of places where the snow drifts were 2+ feet deep completely blocking the MUP and requiring me to carry the bike for many yards until it got shallow enough to ride again.

Between the temp and the wind I was pretty cold when I arrived at the office 4 miles and 40 minutes later. But I made it, so that's what counts.

noglider 

I had a “funny” commute yesterday. As I said recently, I’ve been taking the NYC subway every day because I haven’t gotten my “stuff” together to commute by bike. My spouse has a car, and she uses street parking, and that requires moving the car every day or so for street cleaning. She was planning to sit in the car for 90 minutes which isn’t legal but you can get away with it; she just moves it aside when the street sweeper comes. She asked me if I’d be willing to take the car to my workplace just so she wouldn’t have to do this dance. I reluctantly said yes. I don’t like driving, and city driving is the worst, but this route isn’t really very bad. Parking is not hard to find near work. So that went well. When I got home in the evening, just as I approached my building, I realized I had come home the habitual way and left the car at work. Duh.

Well, I haven’t been riding enough, so I rode my bike there. It’s 13 miles. Doing it after sunset is nice because the path is less crowded, but much of it is through a park where the entrances are over a mile apart. It seems ripe for crime, though actual incidence seems low. It wasn’t a problem for me this time. I was using a new powerful headlight, and I found that the beam pattern is no better than my weaker lights. And in fact, it has artifacts that tickles my peripheral vision making me feel like someone is coming up from behind when there’s no one there. Noted. So it’s a super terrific being-seen light but offers nothing special in the seeing ability.

I didn’t have to bring anything with me so I was lightly burdened, and I got to ride my nice bike.

I tossed the bike into the car and drove home. That’s when I hit some pretty awful traffic. I’m pretty relaxed when that happens, so I wasn’t super irritated. I did get home late and therefore didn’t get to sleep until late. This new kind of work (teaching) is really hard on my sleep. It’s taking a long time to get used to getting up at 5:30 and pushing myself so I’m never late.

noglider 

I have dynamos on some of my bikes. I like them, and it’s OK with me to have the ideal setup on only some bikes. Just a thought to consider. I still wish I had gotten them sooner.

Welshboy

Another working week has come and gone and rather unexpectedly I cycled in on all three days despite some very wet weather in my part of the UK. Monday was a bit of a mistake as I don't normally ride in the rain but I misjudged things and after some light rain it fairly hammered down and for good measure it hammered down on the way home too. Fresh kit on Tuesday and I had good luck with the rain and again today. I'm not in work next week as I have some leave left and as my commuter bike needs a good service (I do my own) I'm tempted to strip it right down and rebuild it with some 8-speed Claris R2000 components off a donor bike. I have 'better' components to hand but my 2012 CAADX has Shimano CX-50 canti's so the brifters need to be New Super SLR.

jaxy357

Rainy day here, too, but not too heavy a downpour luckily. My coworker rode her bike in today (positive peer pressure) and she forgot her lock so we were chained together today, haha!

runningDoc

Feb and March have been good. Almost commuted every work day. I use Cadence App on iPhone and have been seeing the power output trends (I got the sram rival power meter).

I've definitely gotten faster what was once a 11-15min commute has gotten down to times of less than 10min! 1.8miles each way. These freaking seattle hills man... Im still surprised at how hilly this city is.

at least i can get 30+mph on the downhills and get that HIIT workout on the uphills.

Darth Lefty 

Two laps this week. I think it was two. It wasn't the most important thing about the week. I'll book two

Darth Lefty 

I’ve been hearing this stuck rock noise for a few trips and finally took a moment to find it and dig it out.

Tubeless FTW!

Darth Lefty 

I decided to pull out the screw. A little bubbling. At this point I should have parked it hole down but I wanted to try the Darts



i have regrets! Can I get a do over? The dart malfunctioned and just left a smoother hole



Fix It Stick tire levers proved to be garbage. To be clear the entire point of the dart is to avoid breaking the bead.



Now I’m going to pull the dart through



To my shock it all went back together, seated with a floor pump, and sealed up again with no dart.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1621:

Decided that the roads were now clear enough of ice and snow that I could ride my hybrid bike today. It was the first time since 11/25 that I've ridden a bike that doesn't have either fat tires or carbide studs. Wow, that was a long stretch. At over four months it was probably the longest I've ever gone without being able to squeeze in a day here and there on a "regular" bike.

There is still lots of snow and ice on the ground, but most of it has melted off the pavement. The only places that were really treacherous were underneath the overpasses, where the sun never shines to melt things off. In these spots there were still several inches of rutted ice. I would try to build speed ahead of these spots, then pick a line to carry me as straight as possible while I coasted across them with my feet hovering just above the ground on either side. The skinny non-studded tires didn't give me much assurance, but I made it across all of them without going down so it's all good.

Temperature this morning was 14°F with a light headwind. The humidity was pretty high at 85% making things feel very cold. Because I was on my regular bike, that also meant I was wearing my clipless shoes rather than winter boots. By the time I made it the 8 miles to the office my feet were painfully frozen. I also was fighting my goggles icing over due to the humidity. Despite all this, it was still better than driving a car.

After going such a long stretch on my winter bikes, when I got on the hybrid this morning the seat felt weird. At first I chalked it up to just not being used to the unpadded Brooks saddle, but by the time I got to work I had decided that the seat was way too low. After I put my bike in the rack I raised it 1/4". We'll see if that helps for the ride home.

*Edit: Just saw they updated the forecast for tonight. We're supposed to get an inch of snow. That means today's voyage on the hybrid will likely be a one day only event this week.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1627:

Woke up to the sound that makes me wince: the wind howling. It's really hard to motivate myself to get out of bed when I hear that.

24°F with a 30 mph steady headwind and gusts much stronger. It was a "need to pedal downhill" kind of morning. Winds are actually supposed to pick up during the day, so I should get a real nice push home.

I was on the hybrid bike with regular tires. There were patches of fresh ice from yesterday's rain, and still thick ruts under the overpasses, but 99% of the pavement was clear so I didn't have any problems without winter tires. The west side of the state got dumped with snow, but thankfully we just wound up with a rainy day.

There is still snow that remains where it had been piled up by shovels and snow moving equipment, but a lot of it has melted off in a nice, slow, controlled fashion. That's good news, because starting Friday the daily high temps are supposed to start poking into the 50s F, and in a week into the 70s. That will be a welcome change in the weather, and because most of the snow has already melted off we shouldn't have problems with flooding. That was a big concern of mine a month ago when we had snow pack taller than me; a sudden warm-up would have pushed the river past its banks. Currently the river is high, but not so high that we're worried it will cause issues once the remaining snow melts.

Welshboy

We finally had a touch of Spring in the UK this week so all three days of my commute were on my road bike which was so nice and so fast and with me being a fan of the Spring Classics it was a delight to ride up this final climb to the office each day!

Darth Lefty 

I only got one lap this week. It was spring break and I was the daycare. Not enough time in office to allow for commute time.

At least the lap was on my new MTB, but it isn't really tuned up yet. Needed more air in the rear, for starters, much less figuring out the damping. And a seat post and handlebar adjustment

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1630:

First commute of the year on the road bike! I felt like a wild man. Seriously, it's amazing how much faster this bike is compared to my others. I can average 3 mph faster than my hybrid bike and feel like I'm putting less effort into pedaling.

I'd say 80% of the snow has melted. There are still areas with mounds of dirty snow where snow shovels and removal equipment had piled it up. They sit there looking like tiny glaciers. But the pavement it nearly completely clear now. Most of the snow and ice patches that linger can easily be ridden around.*

Google said 34°F and my kitchen thermometer said 40°F. I wore my regular full finger cycling gloves instead of my winter gloves. I think Google was closer to accurate as my fingers were pretty numb. But there was hardly any wind so that helped. It's supposed to be in the upper 60s for the ride home so I packed a pair of shorts. That will feel really nice after this long winter.

*Had one "OS" moment. As I was going under an overpass that I knew previously had several inches of rutted ice, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was mostly clear with just some standing water on the pavement. "The last few days of warm temps must have melted it off!" I thought to myself. I didn't slow down. As I hit what I thought was standing water, I was surprised to discover it was actually the same patch of thick rutted ice hiding in the reflection of the sun. At that point there was nothing I could do but hold on. Somehow I made it across the bumpy ice without hitting the ground or puncturing a skinny road bike tire. I'll have to learn from this incident and take heed going forward, as it looks like this stretch of rutted ice is going to stick around for a while.

ascherer 

The 2023 season began today. I took my commuter out of winter storage at our upstate house, gave it a good cleaning, and brought it back to the city. My commute is about 4.7 miles to midtown Manhattan from the upper west side which allows me to do about half of it through Central Park then down 7th Avenue through Times Square to my office at 34th Street. I don’t use the park on the way home because in the afternoons it’s too full of folks doing random things. There’s a fine bike lane that runs north all the way up Central Park West. It’s great to be rolling through the city again!

locolobo13 

The sun was up when I got to work this morning! First time this year.

Welshboy

Another week on my road bike although I did get a soaking on the ride home on Tuesday - it took me 36 hours to dry my cycling shoes out! I'm definitely getting fitter and overtook a fellow commuter who had previously overtook and dropped me like a stone only two or three weeks ago. However, I've still got puncture anxiety and might go back to Schwalbe Marathon Plus... that'll slow me down!

Darth Lefty 

No rides this week. Lingering fever and upper respiratory infection. Mostly chills and weakness, sore throat. Not Covid, no cough, failed test. WFH because thanks to Covid knowledge workers don’t call in sick any more

RobbiRobbi

Ugh, it's winter again! Last week was summer weather, but the last two days we're back down to low 40s. Yesterday we had intermittent rain which I managed to avoid going out in. Today is chilly but dry, and I had a good ride this morning. Going to run some errands after work so I'm carrying some stuff with me that I'm returning. I'm hoping to soon give my cold weather gear a final wash and put it away for the season!

Darth Lefty 

Tundra Man, is your snow-buried bike rack exhumed yet?

runningDoc

since moving here yesterday was the first day in seattle where i legit got rained on my commute home. i've gotten lucky the last 4 months even when it did rain where I'd sneak home 30min-1hr early if i could dodge the rain.

wasn't bad!

only my pants got wet and rain jacket kept my upper half totally dry. i plan to just keep an extra change of clothes at work in case if i get rained on going to work.

I admit that sometimes I'll cheat and drive to work in my car in the AM then drive back home to eat lunch, but then take the bike to work after lunch to get my bike commute in.

Tundra_Man 

Yes! Enough snow melted away from it that I was able to start using it about three weeks ago. Last week we had a string of days in the 60°F range so that pretty much took care of the lingering snow piles. The only snow remaining are the sites where the city dumped all the snow they'd removed from the roadways all winter, and the piles were (seriously) over 100' tall. They're estimating that those piles won't completely melt off until June. But for those of us out on the road and trails, everything is finally snow and ice free.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1638:

Rain today and 40°F. I took the hybrid bike with fenders. Normally on Thursdays I do a split commute where I work in our company office during the morning and a client location during the afternoon, but I'm not motivated enough to get soaked three times today; twice is plenty.

I bought a new set of tires for the hybrid last week, but haven't gotten around to installing them yet. Because I'm still running the old tires, there was a "thump, thump, thump..." the whole way to work as my back tire has developed a bulge. I noticed the bulge a couple weeks ago and got the replacement tires ordered, but since then it's been nice enough to ride the road bike so I keep putting off installing them. Hopefully this weekend I can get around to mounting them and get rid of the throbbing, and the associated fear that the tire will finally let go and strand me.

I've got a solo guitar/singing performance scheduled for May 7th and preparing for that has been soaking up all my extra time. I've performed in a band setting thousands of times, but it's been over 10 years since my last solo gig so I've been woodshedding new material instead of doing things like bike maintenance. For anyone else who plays, I've been working to incorporate a looper pedal into my skillset, which has proven to be extremely humbling. The learning curve has been much steeper than I anticipated.

I've run Kendas on my hybrid pretty much since I bought it. They're cheap and seem to be pretty durable. However, the last few Kendas I bought have developed a bulge like this. This latest tire only has 1,300 miles on it. I decided it's not saving me any money if I'm replacing tires more frequently. So this time around I spent a few extra bucks and went with Continentals. I run Continentals on my road bike and have been satisfied with the performance and durability I've been getting on that bike, so I decided to try them on the hybrid as well.

Welshboy

Rather suddenly, I'm back to a four-day week with one day at my old location (only 3-miles each way) and three days at my current location (a more substantial 10-miles each way). For the one day at my old location I thought I'd wear normal clothes and I dug out some flat pedals so rode in nice and slowly so as not to get all sweaty. Today, my week started with a proper soaking. It hammered down almost as soon as I left the house and, even on the cycle path, I got the 'bow wave' off several large vehicles who ploughed through the pools of water on the adjacent main road. Man, I was wetter than an otter's pocket! My cycling kit hadn't dried out by home time so I had to put it on whilst still damp and my cycling shoes were still very wet. Nevermind, it's a good weather forecast for tomorrow so I'll be on my road bike without fenders.

jaxy357

Trying to get to 60 miles this month for St. Jude fundraiser, have a bit more to do before Sunday!! Also, after about a year of my commute I discovered this semi covered bike parking spot behind my building, courtesy of some Structural Engineering students back in the day, I'm sure!